A Window on Life

Context - Culture

The organization culture at LaCroix Industries is very strong and has been developed over twenty-five years. Gilles LaCroix through his one on one, group huddles has engrained a core enacted value of quality and a vision of creating a window for life. The shared values and assumptions continue to drive the plant employees to want to develop a high quality window even though Build-All Products Inc. views the windows as ‘competitive for the value.’ Since the takeover, there has been limited visibility and communication, publicly stating what Build-All Products Inc.’s corporate values are and how LaCroix Industries fits into their over arching strategy.

A sense of culture motivates, unites, and increases employee involvement. The ‘values-in-use’ are not aligned with Build-Alls Products Inc.’s current strategy and are sending mixed messages to employees. Employees at the plant continue to hold on the memories of when Gilles ‘would show up during an evening break with coffee and doughnuts to discuss how the business was doing and how it became so successful through quality work’; a ritual that helped build their strong culture.

‘Culture is one of the most precious things a company has,’ so companies ‘must work harder on it than anything else’ and as a result, this is a liability and a lost opportunity for Build-All Products Inc as they acquired LaCroix Industries for its quality product and highly skilled work force. Culture influences employee decisions and behaviour, bonds employee together, makes them feel part of the company, and helps employees understand what goes on and why things happen within the company.

Before the takeover, LaCroix Industries’ culture wasn’t adaptive. Today, employees are not embracing the changes at the plant even though Gilles feels the company’s ‘success and survival depends on expansion into the US.’ In an adaptive culture, employees recognize that they need to satisfy stakeholder needs through...